


Chasing. Falling.

by Eavenne



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Bullying, F/M, Falling In Love, Growing Up, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, References to Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, Tearjerker, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 01:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15570252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eavenne/pseuds/Eavenne
Summary: Roderich had always been chasing him.But now Basch was chasing Roderich.





	Chasing. Falling.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was based on a prompt – a lyric from one of Ed Sheeran's songs, "And tasted the sweet perfume of the mountain grass I rolled down"
> 
> Warnings: Suicidal thoughts, an uncomfortable description of an injury, one or two sentences that possibly involve homophobia, some mentions of school bullying.
> 
> Switzerland = Basch  
> Austria = Roderich  
> Hungary = Erzsébet
> 
> This has been called my best fic. Enjoy!

Roderich used to chase him.

They were young and free and their lives were simple, uncomplicated. The newly-loosed autumn leaves would sail down the channels of chilly air and scatter, gold and curling, on the ground before them. Basch would race ahead and pursue the wind as it slipped from his grasp – Roderich would follow, lagging behind, breathing raggedly and gasping for his friend to stop.

Basch would turn, then – and Roderich would eventually catch up.

Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, they’d marvel at the view spilling vividly before their eyes. They’d talk. They’d laugh. They’d look at each other and smile, unthinking.

Back then, everything had been as it should.

Back then, everything had been wonderful.

\---

Roderich stopped chasing him.

As the seasons went by and years passed he grew colder, quieter. Inside he was still the same kind soul that Basch had met all those years ago, but now he didn’t seem to smile. He didn’t seem to laugh.

All through high school people jeered at him, shunned him, called him a weakling. Because he was skinny and bad at sports, Roderich was a loser. Because he loved music and played the piano for hours every day, Roderich was gay.

“Gay”. People spat the word like a slur, yelled it in the corridors as he walked by. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t true – even if it was, no one deserved to be treated like that – for the word had lost any semblance of meaning to them. They laughed ruthlessly at him, their faces looming gargoyle-like from doors or lockers or the far ends of the halls as they cornered him in the bathroom or the classroom or the basketball court. Roderich’s eyes would widen and his hand would curl into a fist but he said nothing. He did nothing.

Sometimes Basch desperately wanted to intervene, but Roderich wouldn’t let him. The last time he’d reported them – the last time he’d told a teacher about it, everything had only gotten worse.

And so, he stopped smiling.

\---

Roderich used to chase him.

When they were young and spring was arriving, they’d go out to the fields and weave aimlessly through the budding flowers. There wasn’t a purpose to anything that they did, but that was fine – there wasn’t a meaning to their actions, but there was no need to search for one.

The slender stream slipped snake-like through the ground, bending here and twisting there and sparkling gently under the sun. They’d walk its path, follow it between the flowers and rocks, and come to a little hill. Once, Basch took a step forward only to lose his balance, and tasted the sweet perfume of the mountain grass he rolled down. It didn’t really hurt. It was harmless, but Roderich didn’t want to join him.

Falling in love was like rolling down that grassy hill.

It happened thrillingly, breathlessly, and all at once. It was gentle and warm and soft and once Basch found himself lying on his back intoxicated with it, he didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to get up.

For there was nowhere else in the world that he’d rather be, and there was no one else in the world that made him feel this way.

Basch knew that Roderich would always stay by his side. There was nothing to doubt about that, for it just was – there was nothing to question about them, for they just were. Roderich was gentle and his smile was beautiful and his laugh was kind. The memory of it brought a dizzy heat to Basch’s face, which he tried to ignore.

He missed the days when Roderich had still been happy.

\---

It started to hurt.

What had once been a light tug turned inwards and gnawed at him, growling like a wild beast that had been starved for years. Suddenly just being with Roderich wasn't enough – Basch wanted more, and his thoughts whirled wildly in his mind as he woke up in the middle of the night and sat up in bed, sweaty and wide-eyed.

It was disgusting. He was disgusting. Why was he – why did he have to be in love with his best friend? Why, when Roderich was straight and nothing would ever work out between them?

He tried not to think about it. He tried to swallow it down and slow his breathing and imagine that he was made of stone and that everything would slip off him like rain.

It worked, for a while.

Then Erzsébet turned everything on its head.

\---

When they first met, she was already dating Roderich.

Within a few minutes, Basch realised that he’d never compare to her. When Erzsébet smiled, her eyes twinkled mysteriously and her glossy lips drew attractively tight. When Erzsébet laughed, her head flew back and her tumbling hair bounced weightlessly on her slim shoulders, winking as it caught the swinging light.

When she moved, the room revolved around her – there, graceful in its centre, she sparkled like a diamond.

And when Basch turned to look at Roderich, he saw that his friend was drawn to her like a moth to a flame.

He was smiling.

It’d been so long since Basch had last seen him smile.

\---

A week later, Basch kissed a girl for the first time.

They were in the same lecture, taking the same degree, and they both liked chocolate – that was all that they had in common, and that was all he knew about her.

One stifling Friday night she followed him home, and he threw her against a wall and they kissed. The lights were off and between their shuddering breaths and the scrape of teeth against skin he imagined that the shoulders moving beneath his hands were broader, that the fingers tangled in his hair were longer, that the chest pressed against his was hard and flat –

When they woke up in the morning she looked at him sadly, and left without a word.

Basch never even learned her name.

\---

“I’m in love with Erzsébet,” said Roderich over the phone at 3am on a Monday morning.

Basch blinked blearily at the ceiling of his bedroom. Something unpleasant twisted in his chest. “I know,” he replied, hoping the bitterness wasn’t audible in his voice.

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“I…” Roderich started speaking, seemed to reconsider, and paused again. At long last, Basch heard his friend take a deep breath. “I want to ask her to marry me.”

Basch’s mind screeched to a halt.

“What do you think?” asked Roderich, oblivious. “Is it a good idea?”

The phone slipped from Basch’s hand. When the tears came he slapped a hand over his mouth to muffle his sobs – alone, hating himself and hating Roderich, he cried in silence.

And Roderich and Erzsébet were engaged the very next day.

\---

When Roderich asked him to be his best man, Basch didn’t know how to refuse without giving himself away.

So he smiled a half-smile and nodded and helped with the wedding plans. He didn’t want to think about the colour of the flowers in Erzsébet’s bouquet, or about how said flowers would match Roderich’s corsage. He didn’t want to think about the flavour of chocolate they’d be offering to the guests, or about the music that would be blaring when Roderich’s wife-to-be floated down the aisle.

But he did anyway, because he was an idiot and a fool who’d fallen in love with someone who’d never feel the same way.

\---

Roderich had always been smarter than he let on.

The feelings that Basch had been choking down for so long now swelled irrepressibly in his chest. Perhaps it was the stiffness of his shoulders, or the strained expression on his face – it’d been years, but at long last Roderich picked up on it, realised that something wasn’t right.

He cornered Basch one day at the hotel, stood firmly near the stairs to the underground parking lots, and asked him what was wrong.

Basch looked away, unable to meet Roderich’s gaze – something stupid about long working hours slipped from his lips, for his hands were shaking and he couldn’t think of a better excuse.

Then Roderich began to plead and demand, and when he was denied he only grew more desperate and frustrated because he was convinced that Basch was hiding something and that talking about it would solve everything –

Basch snapped.

Suddenly everything spilled from his mouth and he couldn’t stop – out of nowhere he was telling Roderich that he didn’t want to be the best man and that he couldn’t watch Roderich get married and that he loved him, he’d been in love with him for so many years, and he knew that it was impossible because he was nothing compared to the woman Roderich was marrying and –

Silence.

Roderich froze. He looked at Basch as though he’d just been slapped.

Basch ran. He rushed to the stairwell and flung the door open and thudded down the staircase, his heart pounding and his eyes stinging and his ears roaring with noise –

And everything went wrong.

\---

Roderich wasn’t supposed to chase him.

Afterwards everyone told Basch that he wasn’t responsible for what happened, for how could he have known that Roderich would slip and fall and crack his skull on the concrete stairs?

But –

Basch heard Roderich cry out and turned back to see the man he loved sprawled on the staircase, motionless, bleeding from the head. He reached the body only to get blood all over his hands, he looked around in panic and tried to call an ambulance but his phone was dead and so he ran back up to scream at someone to call a goddamned ambulance because Roderich had fallen on the stairs and he wasn’t moving and –

Roderich died that day.

And all Basch could think was that he deserved to die, too.

\---

Basch didn’t go to the funeral.

For he’d killed Roderich, and he was unforgivably guilty, and Basch was certain that everyone who would be there hated him almost as much as he hated himself.

Instead he drove half of the way there and turned back like a coward. He beat red lights and ignored speed limits, dimly hoping that someone would crash into him and give Roderich the justice he deserved. Yet Basch got nearer and nearer to his apartment and he was still alive and why was he still alive and could someone please just –

He didn’t know how or why he arrived safely home. All Basch could think was that he should have driven in front of the lorry on the next lane.

The next day, he barely moved from his bed. His boss called him and he didn’t pick up and eventually the calls stopped, so Basch supposed he’d been fired.

It didn’t matter. He didn’t really care, and there didn’t seem to be a point in having a job anymore. Instead Basch laid flat on his mattress and stared at the ceiling fan, silently watching it move. Time flew by for the rest of humanity but stopped for him, in that room, on that bed. He felt his stomach burn with hunger, and decided to let himself starve. He deserved it, anyway.

Distantly, as though it were a pointless dream he’d forgotten long ago, Basch remembered falling down that grassy hill all those years ago. Roderich had refused to follow him then, but he’d fallen eventually, hadn’t he? He’d always been chasing Basch and he’d always been behind him, but he wasn’t supposed to go after Basch that day and he wasn’t supposed to fall and he wasn’t supposed to die.

If only –

Back then Basch had felt the warm grass tickle the back of his neck, and he’d gazed at the sky and thought with amazement that it was such a wonderful thing that the sky was so blue and so beautiful. It was a miracle that the world was brimming with life and that he was there lying on the sweet-smelling grass, for being alive was such a rare and incredible thing –

The fan creaked painfully as it spun.

Basch wished it would snap from the ceiling and kill him.

\---

It took a year.

He’d never be the same again, but at the very least, Basch was back on his feet. If it hadn’t been for his sister’s boundless love and endless patience, he wouldn’t have gotten better.

If it hadn’t been for her, he wouldn’t even be alive.

\---

Roderich used to chase him.

But now Basch was chasing Roderich. Sometimes he’d dream of him, imagine that somewhere, somehow, he was still alive – and then he’d wake up and laugh mirthlessly, for the man he’d loved was still dead.

There were so many things that Basch wished he’d told him. Roderich was kind and gentle, and he was amazing at the piano, and he was an incredible friend – there was no doubt in Basch’s mind that he’d said all of those things before, but he wanted to see Roderich again, to look into his eyes and smile and tell him what a wonderful person he was –

But it was too late.

Basch wondered if he’d ever be able to forgive himself.


End file.
